Yep, as long as it's up-front, as a consignor you choose the format that works best for you, and as a bidder you keep all the rules in mind when bidding - as you say, there is no perfect system. As a consignor who has only consigned twice, my new policy is to rarely consign and to just keep working on my own selling techniques. My thinking had been that rare (or unique) items should do better through someone like REA, and I still believe that - I have a few items that I'm sure Rob could get more for than I could on my own.
Okay, I'll throw us back on topic - another autograph regret I have is simply not going through the mail back in the 1970's. I loved getting autographs back then, and I liked mailing off for stupid stuff like trick cameras and maps
, but it never crossed my mind to mail off for autographs. Huge missed opportunity.